Does 'brew analytics off' fully suppress all Homebrew analytics events?
0 reputation · 25 Sept 2020, 04:01 UTC
Homebrew's analytics subsystem records command usage locally in a JSON file and transmits data to a central endpoint. The documented command brew analytics off is intended to prevent new analytics events from being queued or written to the local store. However, the exact scope of this opt-out remains unclear when considering asynchronous transmission and specific event categories.
The primary uncertainty is whether disabling analytics fully halts all event generation and local persistence, or whether certain error events—such as those originating from brew update—can still be recorded after the user opts out. Because events may be batched and sent by background processes, previously queued data might also be transmitted even after the local flag is set. Behavior may vary across Homebrew releases, particularly in older versions where the flag or file location could differ.
Does brew analytics off guarantee that no new entries are written to the local analytics file, or can specific error events bypass the opt-out? Are previously queued analytics events still transmitted asynchronously after disabling analytics? How does this suppression behavior differ across supported Homebrew versions?